The 2010 Census forms will arrive in household mailboxes March 15-17. The U.S. Census Bureau is asking elected officials and other community leaders to encourage constituents to fill out the form and return it promptly. The Census is only 10 questions long, and should only take about 10 minutes to fill out.

By law, everyone in the U.S. – citizens and noncitizens - must be counted every 10 years. Census data is used to reapportion congressional seats and census data is also used to allocate more than $400 billion annually to local governments. TMACOG and other planning agencies use Census data to make plans for highways and other critical infrastructure.

Local representatives of the Census told TMACOG members that some people are resistant to filling out the census form because they fear that information will be shared with other federal agencies such as immigration, welfare, or law enforcement. Representatives state that the absolute privacy of census data is written into the U.S. Constitution and that such data has never been and will never be shared. The representatives noted that those least likely to be counted are the very young and very old, students, and single parents.